By Jim Smith
On a recent Holland America cruise that my wife and I took to Scotland and Norway, I met an Army veteran who heard me being interviewed about my memoir “Heroes to the End” by radio personality Garrison Keillor.
I am seeking a screenplay writer to help me translate the book into a 6-10-part Netflix TV series.
This veteran said he knows “Titanic” producer Marty Katz and gave me his email address.
He said Katz is working on a film about his experience as an Army photographer in Vietnam.
I emailed Katz. He sent me a copy of his script and gave me names and addresses for five literary agencies. He suggested I send them a proposal. So I did.
I mailed a book and a proposal to: William Morris Endeavor and the Gersh Agency in Beverly Hills, Calif.; and Creative Artists Agency, United Talent Agency and International Creative Management Partners in Manhattan.
On my book tour, I sold 429 books and will have donated $11,857 to United Veterans Beacon House by the time my last check from a library arrives.
It has been rewarding but frustrating 20 months.
Rewarding, in that I was able to spread my message about the tail end of the war at almost 100 stops: that U.S. troops were doing heroic things right to the end.
I told audiences at 34 libraries, 12 American Legion posts and 10 VFW posts that I and others were deluded into thinking we had won the war as I flew home in August 1972.
By the poor attendance I received at libraries, I came to feel that the war is irrelevant to most Long Islanders.
I made calls to more than 50 VFWs and 50 Legion posts and generated 22 invitations.
People said they’d get back to me and didn’t.
Post commanders said they’d talk it over and never called back. Even when I was invited, I sometimes had five or 10 minutes to make my pitch and then sold only three or four books.
I got the impression most posts could care less about the homeless that Beacon House take in.
The Mineola American Legion post commander never responded to several phone messages.
I was filmed three times, interviewed on Hofstra and LIU Post radio stations, spoke at four senior centers, a conference at Adelphi, two bookstores, the Whitestone Masonic Lodge, the Battleship New Jersey in Camden, two Beacon House fundraisers, two North Hempstead town veterans breakfasts, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock in Manhasset and at meetings of the Mineola Chamber of Commerce, County Seat Kiwanis Club, Syosset Rotary Club, two Molloy College adult education classes and the North Hempstead Veterans Advisory Committee.
I got what amounted to the bum’s rush from the same Albertson VFW that had not welcomed me in 1973 when I left the Army.
I did join the Port Washington VFW near my apartment, and marched in the Memorial Day parade.
I have a great sense of pride that I finished my bucket list project. Thanks to everyone who bought a book or donated. I can be reached at smithjimvet@gmail.com.
Order my book through www.heroestotheend.com.
I enjoyed every part of Memorial Day: lowering of the flag with five-rifle salutes at the post at 8 and at Manorhaven Village Hall at 9, the parade from Campus Drive at the high school to Main Street and down the hill to more ceremonies at the bandshell. It was spritzing rain.
I wore my baggy olive drab fatigues, boots and boonie hat from my days as a Stars and Stripes reporter.
I stuck a replica Vietnam service medal on the hat.
I had a female Marine veteran on my left and an Iraq War vet on my right.
Despite the weather, there were hundreds of men, women and children, some waving flags, some dressed in patriotic regalia, lining Main Street. I had tears in my eyes as people clapped and said “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” and “Thank you for your service” to us as we marched by in threes behind flag bearers and riflemen in camouflaged fatigues.
For me, it felt like the welcome home party I never had 44 years ago.
